I rearranged devotions binding so you can see how this works.
Use World of Pain to mark your foes with pierce RR AND slow them down.
Shoot them with Cadence, piercing through the entire screen and triggering Blades of Wrath on Critical Attack, shredding them in every direction.
==>Since our OA is very high, crits will come off often, always triggering blades of wrath AoE. And since they have very low CD, you will be able to shred the entire screen every time Cadence hits. That’s besides shooting your portable line cannon through the mobs, offing them even off-screen.
You can also spec another two points (if relic has a lucky roll with bonus) into Zolhan and Markovian’s Advantage, effectively adding another two WPS skills, which will do their job while Cadence is inactive, both featuring nice debuffs and Zolhan adding 120 Degree attack arc to your AoE hit range.
You also have Lucky Bullet and Valdun’s treachury, which take care of mobs who come into close distance. Lucky Bullet will fire a spread of 4 projectiles, while Valdun will fire burst round in 3 meters around you.
If they are STILL too close, like those fucking chargers, then Whirling Blades will damage them and, thanks to Assasin’s Mark, provide even more pierce RR, allowing you to deal with them quickly, before they deal with you.
Would it be possible to link a two handed melee tactician build? Tired of running shaman for 2H and want something new. I tried DK but gave up due to the lack of gear synergizing with it, but feel like tactician pierce / trauma could maybe work?
I like the idea (based on your 3 builds) that i will be able to change from DW to sword+board to ranged whenever i want if i got the items.
Then i thought what if i could even change to sword+board full Octavius + Pummeler Forcewave? Actually with changes to passives and items ofc it can be done but there is a small problem, for Forcewave build you dont actually need Aura of Conviction, you need Oleron’s rage.
EDIT:
There is a way to respec mastery points now, but then if you dont take AoC why do you need Inquisitor for a Forcewave build, just for Deadly aim and Word of renewal?
You don’t need AoC, because my own build of Octavius provides 55% RDR and 40+% physical resistance. The build has a very high Trauma damage, so those reflection mobs will be the bane of you, unless you stack physical resistance or reflected damage reduction. Since I did so without taking AoC, Oleron is preferable choice here.
And Inquisitor Seal, which enhances the defensive and offensive potential of this build even further. You see, you always have a choice here - you can either take AoC or you can take Oleron, it all depends on your equipment and character stats. Both work fine.
Nope. There is no reason to include this in the game.
Yes, but what i mean is that a 2H Forcewave or even Pummeler Forcewave build maybe would be better on other class combo with soldier, because you dont actually get much stuff from Inquisitor apart from WoP and Deadly aim.
Dont you agree that it would be better with Warder or Witchblade?
You can have an alternative with Fire Forcewave, using either Commando or Tactician, both with Justicar Set. Commando is arguably stronger. It will definitely be 2H, however.
Witchblade works much better with a shield and Cadence, either physical or chaios conversion. 2H can utilize Obsidian Juggernaut, but again, with Cadence, due to Voidsteel Gauntlets.
Warder has Primal Strike and Savagery. besides, if he goes with FW it’s 100% using Tremor, which will interfere with it’s WPS skills.
As for physical rauma, I doubt so. Octavius Set was built specifically around Tactician, i.e. Inquisitor class included, there are too many nice bonuses on it to ignore, especially for FW - the most important ones being CD reduction.
New to the game, got it a few days ago. First thing I did was figure out what kind of build I wanted to play (melee), and read up on published builds. Was debating between this build and the DW Blademaster build, but after reading more about how Devotion procs work with Seal of Blades, I decided to try building (had to make a new character) towards this build as it seemed less nerf prone.
I started as Inquisitor, leveled up with Word of Pain kiting mostly, which seemed to work well enough. I got to 50 last night and decided to respec a bit, putting all of the points I had into Word of Pain/Agony into Cadence/Fighting Form/Fighting Spirit/the other early Soldier stuff, as I had collected a good amount of physical/piercing damage heavy armor and a good shield. Figured I would be a good bit tankier (which I had noticed had become an issue in the expansion as a pure Inquisitor), would deal with trash mobs slower, but would be better against boss enemies.
Well, I was kind of right. Except I was getting absolutely thrashed by some boss enemies that were 6 levels higher than me. After dying like 20 times, I decided to spec back to a mostly pure Inquisitor and keep leveling.
So, my question is… at what point does the build become tanky enough to be a viable leveling option? Obviously I don’t have any of the gear in either the DW or 1h/Shield build yet, but have been putting my Devotion points towards the DW setup. Is this just a lifesteal issue? (I only had 4%, and have not done the Ghoul constellation yet) I almost have Giant’s Blood now and opted to go into Dryad’s Blessing early to help me survive as Inquisitor.
Just trying to figure out what aspect of the build is key to defense, so I can understand when I’ll cross that threshold where I can expect to survive. Seems like melee in general just has a harder time in this game without the gear to back it up.
If you are going for pure DW, then getting ADCtH early is very recommended. I went for Dryad and Bat-Ghoul early, so I could have a nice sustain starting even from Veteran.
As for the Shield, you have a lot of defensive skills, why don’t you use them more often - Menhir’s Will, Overguard, Shield Training, Inquisitor Seal? They all help tremendously, especially in the early game. With these backing you up, you can go for damaging devotions early, like the entire pierce line.
Also, a small advice - you can have some really good epic equipment from drops, but if you feel like you lacking in some specific piece - don’t be ashamed to craft one. Since it was buffed, you can get good pieces with nice affixes, which can carry you somewhat in Veteran and early Elite.
Me personally, I respecced at level 52 and felt completely fine.
Since I can’t use Direwolf Crest until 65, which route would you recommend for 1h/Shield before then?
Full defensive skills with the Pierce devotions or Defensive Devotions?
Only have two pieces of epic gear right now, I’ll look into crafting. I also don’t have a relic yet, is that important/problematic? I guess I’m just not entirely sure what ot prioritize on gear… I have a decent set of pierce/physical damage armor, butr it seems like my resistances are pretty low.
Edit: Also, what is good other than Ghoul to provide ADCtH early on? I know Seal of Blades gives 5% each, but I’m having a hard time finding anything with ADCtH from drops.
I’m currently testing Pierce Tactician myself, and I went with full defensive skills plus pierce devotions. However, my character certainly feels more weak defensively, even though Overguard and IS help a lot.
Start your way with getting Dagger and Assasin, then grab Lizard, Eel, Shieldmaiden - everything that helps you to survive. You can respec later.
The thing is, you only have some options on Veteran\Elite, before decent gear, including Reaver’s Claw or Slicers. So opt for a more physical approach with your build. When you get enough equipment on later levels - rearrange into pierce.
As for relic, Calamity\Guile for early levels will suffice. Try to craft them if you can.
Your resistances don’t matter much on Veteran and early Elite, so I wouldn’t worry about that. When they start to matter, you should already have started hunting for 75 level sets.
For ADCtH - Toad, Bat are both excellent devotions along with gear you find.
Well, I did what you said, re-specced a bit and tried some different gear. I’ve got a slicer I can use at level 55, so I’m using +physical where I can for now.
This is my build. I seem to be struggling against any enemy that can hit hard. I’ve got 5207 life, and while I can fight in seal with Overguard up, some of these bosses that are +5 my level can just two shot me. If I get to half health, even before Ghoul can activate, I have to run away or risk dying in one hit.
Currently I’m in the Malmouth Sewers, trying to fight Galakros, the Mountain, and he’s destroying me. He summons level 61 adds to help him, which aren’t hard to kill, but if I stand in one place for more than 5 seconds, he just two-shots me. Not sure what to adjust at this point to avoid these scenarios. I can kill the boss enemies if they don’t hit ridiculously hard, but guys like Galakros (earlier in the act when I specced back to pure Inquisitor to just kite enemies constantly instead of melee, it was because of Carraxus the Foul, who pretty much had the same MO… two shot me) are giving me very significant trouble.
Ok, I just came back from the game, where I’m already level 60, in AoM.
The thing is, I don’t recommend finishing expac on Veteran at all, until Crate rebalances the whole thing. The specific problem relies in resistances and hard-hitting bosses, which either require you to go full tank, or constantly dying. As a melee, we don’t have nearly enough good equipment and devotions to shine at this level, where are bosses already sporting almost late Elite-level strength. I managed to reach Malmouth myself, but since then it gets exponentially harder for melee to maintain it’s tankiness, without running away.
My advice? Go to Elite. Reach level 75. Farm either Crucible or main game for level 75 equipment, then finish Veteran, it should be way easier now.
Yeah, I’d agree with your assessment about the difficulty of Veteran being off for the expac… I went back to earlier areas, even stuff that was still scaling up above my level, and I was destroying everything. It was like Night and Day compared to the expac. I got near the end… things got a little easier at 55 when I started using more pierce gear, but the difference between boss enemies in expac at level 60 and boss enemies in the vanilla game at level 60 are like night and day, it’s not even comparable.
OK, I’ll go start on Elite, hopefully the leveling will be faster, I’d really like to start getting some of the cooler set items and weapons. Feels like my execution of the build so far is only 1/3 of what it was intended to be with all of this sub-par gear.
